


Ralph Lanyon: In Their Own Words interview

by greerwatson



Category: RENAULT Mary - Works, The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: ITOWverse, In Their Own Words, M/M, character interviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-10
Updated: 2008-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ralph Lanyon is the first of Mary Renault's characters to whom the Interviewer puts the fans' questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ralph Lanyon: In Their Own Words interview

**Author's Note:**

> On 4 February 2008, the moderators of the [maryrenaultfics](http://maryrenaultfics.livejournal.com/) LiveJournal community, trueriver and my_cnnr, unveiled the idea of doing meta-interviews with the characters of Mary Renault's novels. Members were invited to pose questions; and, once there were a sufficient collection of ideas, the interviews began, starting with the character who had received the most questions. Each week, a different character or group of characters became the focus; and all members were invited to post answers. 
> 
> As the "In Their Own Words" project progressed, not only did the interviews became more free-form, but the introductions (written by the moderators) became longer, the character of the Interviewer was developed, and the setting evolved into a Community clubhouse where the various characters were being entertained at a barbecue before taking their own turn on the grill.

_What was in the letter you wrote to Laurie after you picked him up from Dunkirk?_

> A lot less than you are probably hoping!  It was war, remember.  Everything had to go through the censor.  If one was wise, one couched one’s queries allusively.
> 
> I wanted to know if he’d done it on purpose.  What else did you think I wrote to him about?  After all, I assumed he’d recognized me.  As it turned out, I was wrong—or, at least, he’s always insisted that I was wrong, though I still have my doubts.
> 
> Oh, I admit that, in his condition (and bearing in mind that I must have looked quite different wearing a beard), it’s not entirely implausible that he was simply cheeking authority.  Only … I remember the schoolboy he used to be; and he was never one of the cheeky ones.
> 
> It was a very carefully worded letter.

_What was the first thing you thought when you saw Laurie at the birthday party?_

> I _thought?_  Oh, trust me, there was blank shock and no thought at all.  I’d believed him dead, remember.  You don’t walk into a friend’s birthday party and see a ghost, and _think_.  I must have gone white as a sheet.  I hope nobody noticed.
> 
> Be sure your sins will find you out.   _That’s_ what I thought.   Plus a measure of gratitude that the letter never did get delivered to him.  Even if it _had_ meant that I’d thought him dead.

_That sounds significant.  So what was in the letter you wrote to Laurie after you picked him up from Dunkirk?_

> More than I should have said, however carefully I tried to put it.  Reading between the lines, if he’d the _nous_ to do so, he’d have known how I felt.  He could hardly not have, it was written so bold between the lines.  The censor probably saw it in neon.
> 
> I always remembered Laurie.  It was the best memory of school—and I was one of the chaps who enjoyed school.  I never wanted to spoil school for _him._  I was afraid I had.  When he sent me up like that, I wondered what I’d made of him.  And what he’d made of me.
> 
> I wanted to get in touch.  That was the worst of the letter.  I knew I still should leave him alone, but I couldn’t let go of the memory of him. 

_Why did you think you should have left him alone?_  


(Question asked by **queen_hypolita**.)

> It had been six years.  Very long years, for me.  And, as I knew how much _I_ must have changed, so it followed that he’d changed too.  The sixteen-year-old school boy who had idolized me had turned into a man capable of saying … well, what he _did_ say.  For whatever reason he’d said it.
> 
> I was far from sure that I’d even want to know the man he must have become.  Even less sure that he’d want to know me.
> 
> Sometimes it’s better just to keep the memory.
> 
> Despite which, I had to write.  It was … hard … when the letter came back as it did.  Too much had gone into writing it, in that invisible neon ink.
> 
> I had thought myself steeled for any response—or none at all.  (It was, after all, quite possible that he might prefer not to contact me, pariah that I must have been to those still at the school after I left.)  Yet I was not in any way prepared for that brief message across the envelope.  It was utterly reasonable that he _might_ have died.  As soon as the letter came back, I saw how foolish I had been not to have considered such a thing.   _Of course,_ injured as he was, his death was probable.  I felt such a fool not to have even thought of the possibility.
> 
> It was an appalling shock.
> 
> You’ll think this silly, but I felt … bereft.  (Yes, that’s the word.)  Of what, I have no idea:  it’s not as though I’d had any contact in the years between.  Not with him, or any of the other chaps from school.  I’m not even sure what I’d hoped to achieve with the letter.  An Old Boys’ reunion?
> 
> I suppose that’s the best I was hoping for.
> 
> He might have written far worse.
> 
> Yes, when the letter came back, I was almost relieved not to have received the sort of response that I dreaded.
> 
> Almost.

_Have you seen your parents since you left school?_

> I suppose the short answer would simply be to say, “No”—and perhaps I should just leave it there. 

_Where did you go when you left school?  I don’t think it was Southampton, was it?_

> Oh, Lord!  You _are_ perceptive, aren’t you?  I suppose this is what you were driving at.
> 
> Well, yes.  I _did_ in the end decide to go home and face the music.  I knew the head must have sent them a formal letter about my expulsion.  (We had next-day postal service in those days, though I expect you are too young to remember.)
> 
> We didn’t run a car.  My family was not as well off as some, and there was a good deal of scrimping and saving to send me to that school—a point that was made … and made again … in those few days before I packed and left.  I went home by train, of course, like most boys, just as I would have at the end of term.  The usual routine, in the most _un_ usual of circumstances, with no joy at the homecoming.
> 
> The head had maintained a measure of decent reticence in explaining why I was being sent down.  My father read between the lines, of course.   He said he didn’t want to know the details:  he didn’t want excuses.  There was a look on his face—rather like someone trying not to smell a privy.  My mother, on the other hand, kept asking me to _explain,_ which was very trying, since that was, of course, the last thing that I could do to her.
> 
> It might have been easier all round if I'd been a few years younger.  My father would simply have thrashed me … again … and tried to find another school willing to take me.  He said as much.  I felt rather that way myself, the more I thought about Hazell.  I _did_ let the family down.  My father was right not to want excuses.  There are none, not for that.  It’s not as though I’d been with someone worthy of the row.  And there was most certainly a row.
> 
> And after that I did go to Southampton.  It happened that my friend’s ship wasn’t in port, and I took a different job.  Had to, pretty well.  One needs to eat.  I tramped the world for a couple of years before setting foot back in England.  Better that way.

_So, getting back to my first question.  Have you seen your parents since you left school?  Or since the row, anyway?_

> No.  I saw my father’s obituary in _The Times_ shortly after the war.  Wrote a note to my mother.  Never got a reply.

_If you could choose, would you prefer to be born heterosexual?_

> This sort of question always strikes me as puerile.  I mean, it’s pointless indulging in idle speculation.  One simply has to live with what one is and make the best of it.

_You sound bitter.   Do you hate who you are, what you are?_

> As I said, one makes the most of what one is given.  I think I took that precept from the upbringing I received from my parents—perhaps the one decent thing they ever gave me, though I’m sure I’m applying the principle to circumstances that would appall them.
> 
> There is only one man I have to live with for the rest of my life—and that is myself.  (I may choose to live with another man; but that’s another matter.)  One cannot cease to associate with oneself, save through insanity.
> 
> If I hate myself, that would make life intolerable.  Do I seem like a man who finds his life intolerable?  If so, then there would be no point in continuing, would there?
> 
> I’ve always said, “It’s not what you are, it’s what you do with it.”  There’s no point in wishing for the moon.

_Then you do wish—I mean that is implied by your words.  Are you saying then that, if you could choose, you would prefer to have been born heterosexual?_

> You said you were going to be interviewing Laurie later, didn’t you?  I suppose that means that you’ll be asking his reaction to my answers.

_That’s hardly an answer to my question._

> Isn’t it?

_Should I draw my own conclusions?_

> You can draw what you damn well like.  If I know your like, you will anyway!

**Author's Note:**

> This interview, as posted here, is a reorganized version of the various comments that I originally made to the post "Ralph Lanyon In His Own Words" (post 196746 to maryrenaultfics).


End file.
